I was reading through the rules yesterday and was honestly worried by the sheer number of ways a team could climb, or help somebody climb. A technical standard, voluntarily followed but available to everyone, would allow any bot that followed it to climb with any other bot. Anybody interested in this, or a terrible idea?
A good standard would be to offer a rung at the same height.
Lower Velcro ropes from your robot.
I was thinking to offer a bar at the same height as well, but that does “interesting” things to structural integrity. On the plus side, if you can grab the bar you can climb on this standard, and that adds a nice bit of redundancy.
Yes! The standard should be having a drivetrain capable of climbing a ramp.
Oh, forgot about that. Ballparking numbers, does 35 degrees sound too reasonable? Perhaps as a Class A standard, for being able to interface with a ramp. Class B is able to climb on another robot, able to support you and 1 partner robot (Class B.1) or able to support you and both other robots (Class B.2)? The mechanism for Class B is currently undefined, leaning towards bar at the correct height? What else?
You kid, but it’s not the worst idea.
I think the safest option would be to provide an identical rung at a similar height, that way other teams that don’t follow the standard could still probably climb on your bot.
Here’s my take from experience. This isn’t a knock on the general idea of a standard, but a word to the wise.
–In 2011, there was talk of a “standard” minibot deployment system. Didn’t happen–but there wasn’t incentive.
–In 2010, however, which had a very similar challenge to this one, there was also talk of a standard. What was concluded, eventually, was that the best way to make sure someone could climb on you was to build the bar of the tower that year onto your robot. Very few teams did, particularly when the “curl”-class climbers were introduced.
But the only recorded hang like that in that year was made on a team that built a replica of the tower onto their robot (essentially)–in an offseason event.
What am I getting at? If hanging off the Rung is the only way to get those points, make darn sure that there’s a Rung on your robot that can support two other robots (that is, absolute minimum 300 lb dynamic load, transferred to the supports for the Rung). Simple, on the surface. Not necessarily simple to integrate.
Or just build a ramp that can be climbed, if that’s an alternative.
Hook on to the rung, and back away from it, allowing another robot to hook onto the rung. Then both lift at about the same time.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Can you drive onto the platform? Very smart ramp teams will design their climb assists such that robots just need to drive up an extended version of the ramp that is already there.
One issue that I foresee with creating a faux bar for teams to climb on is the lack of a wall beneath your robot for them to brace agaisnt. How do people in this thread plan on accommodating or anticipating that challenge?
Most climbers I saw in 2016 relied pretty heavily on dragging bumpers agaisnt the wall or rolling up with some mechanism it in order to stay oriented correctly. Maybe it’s a non issue, but it doesn’t seem that trivial to me to be able recreate the bar and the surrounding geometry on a robot already in the air.
Non-issue.
2016 required staying within the “reach allowance” for that year even when climbing. 2018 does not (within certain restrictions like location and time).
The fact there was a wall in 2016 and there is one in 2018 does not mean that a wall must be used to climb… (2004, 2017, 2000, 2010, 2013 in no particular order)
Is anyone afraid to climb on another robot? It is a big risk after all…
In 2007, teams did it all the time, on the ramps built into many robots.
In 2010, teams shared your sentiment.
I don’t feel like it is quite as big a risk as climbing last year. Last year the bottom of the robot was almost 3 ft (if I remember correctly) off the ground. This year, you only have to go up a minimum of 10 inches. (With bumpers being at their highest)
I would have no issues with driving onto a teammates ramp in this game as it is so close to the ground.
The the teammate is going to extend a bar or support us while they are also in the air, I would probably want video proof that it is structurally sound.
Not trying to disprove your point, it was extremely rare in 2010 to climb on another robot, but it did happen once during the regular season. Team 2337 supported team 2959 in Quals 80 at MSC.
Here’s my proposal - Climb and Let Climb:
- If you can climb from the side of the rung (the box tube), use the 2" edge of the tower to keep yourself from rotating across the scale centerline.
- Bonus points if you can climb to 3 or 4 feet above the platform.
- If you can only climb from the round part of the rung, your arm should be no wider than the rung. Try to keep any wider part (your drive base) from being higher than 3 ft from the platform
If we all try to obey these standards (especially the first one), we’ll have 2 robots climbing almost every match. Yay teamwork!
with that first bullet point, I’m imagining a robot newton’s cradle.
I’ll just leave this here.